What's up big Christmas

Hello space cadets and rangers of the deep sea, I hope you all had a killer Christmas and got the red pontiac aztec you were wishing for.

This was quite the week, on tuesday we were asked to go to Gaithersburg to pick up new mission cars. So 6 missionaries, went out of the mission to pick up cars and drive them back individually by themselves. So i drove out of the mission by myself with no companion and no tiwi (for those that know tiwi the biggest bully ever). Super weird but we were asked to do it. I might have forgotten what the speed limit was due to my excitement of having no tiwi to govern my speed. Also that same day I went on an exchange with Elder Funk who is a brand new missionary. We biked around his area in the freezing cold and got a return appointment with someone by tracting. Elder Funk is a creature. He is super funky, such a riot to be around hahahha

Karina is doing super well, she soaked up the Plan of Salvation this past week and is hungry for more! She wants to come to church so hopefully we can make that happen this Sunday.

Friday we had our mission Christmas conference which was super fun and i got to see some homiez.



Christmas was super tight we spent a lot of the day with the Larkins, a family in the Clarksville branch. They fed us breakfast and we played ping pong and all sorts of stuff. shoutout to my family for being super sick and having a good skype sesh.



keep on lurkin keep on wurkin and always remember to read yur scriptures!


here are some pics you can print out on mugs and save them for your grandchildren. Probably not though because my hair looks like a garbage can

"the whole crew's here, the haters cant keep up. Now they are in fear, they're gonna get messed up" - Lost Cause me, e mink, e ressler, & e meyer

Elder Garcia shoutout to my boiz from the shepherd ward priest quorum

Street Rangers reunion

Skype city

cruissssssin into 2017

Christmas in July. Actually it's December. Christmas really is in December.

What's up space cadets, thanks for tuning in to another week of alligators on skateboards

The long night is o'er! We have found an investigator! Yes you heard me! After two months of nothing we have an investigator! Her name is Karina, we met her last week at our stand at the community college and we had our first lesson with her this week which went super well (aside from one thing I'll describe in a second)! She understood the message of the restoration and the need of a prophet. She doesn't have a whole lot of religious background, so she just soaked up everything we taught her! We are seeing her again this week.

So before I explain the one thing that didn't go so well about the lesson, I'm going to put this in to context. So we met with Karina on campus at HCC, so there was other people around. So about 5 minutes in to the lesson some punk who I'm pretty sure is part of the school staff, walked up to us and was like, "did you tell her that you believe in a different Jesus than in the Bible?" and started saying some other completely false stuff and I kinda lost it. We've spent two months working to get an investigator and I was NOT about to let this fool mess it up! Basically long story short i kinda lost my temper and told this guy that he was absolutely false and that we weren't going to let him tear down our faith and then I demanded that he leave, and he did. So aside from that it went really well, and thankfully Karina was really understanding of what happened despite my lack of self control and understood that we aren't lying to her.

In other news, we went on exchanges with our zone leaders and me and Elder Hawley were kickin it in my area. We went street contacting at a lake in the frigid cold and had a good time. We spent like two days this week volunteering at a food bank which was such a pleasure. It was so nice to help the people in need this holiday season. Also it snowed the other day, and then rained. Gross.



Friends and baby alligators, and adult foxes. Do not forget to do the elf boogie this holday season. And stay away from eating paper bags. Paper is not meant to be consumed. Also make sure to focus on Jesus Christ this week and why it is so important that he came to earth!

snow I look like a penguin not sure why

exchange

snow

my companion is a freak

The Best of Elder Poulsen and Elder Meyer Volume 0

Last week I complained that it was a boring week, this week I got what I asked for! This week we:

1. got in a car accident
2. got kicked out of our apartment
3. lost our phone

Now I must inform you these are not quite all as bad as they sound. We got rear ended by some lady and we were all fine (though we did get thrown into the middle of an intersection during a red light but thankfully nobody was coming and we didn't get hit again). The mission office called us (5 minutes after we found our phone) and told us we need to be out of our apartment so that a senior couple can move in to it, so we had to move apartments with a day notice, my new address is
5455 Columbia Rd #213
Columbia, MD 21044
Lastly, we lost our phone over night and found it the next day 11 miles away in the grass on the side of someone's house, all I can say is the spirit guides us in times of need.

So yeah our life kinda got turned upside down this week but not really, in other news, the greatest thing that happened this week is we finally got to set up a stand at Howard Community College (HCC)! HCC is the number 4 ranked community college in the country and has a lot of people. We have been trying to arrange this ever since I got here and finally got to do it. We worked with the branch missionaries and set up a stand complete with hot cider, donuts, and tons of materials! We mainly focused our efforts on the church's Christmas initiative #LightTheWorld. We gave out hundreds of pass along cards and talked to tons of people and got one return appointment! Which might not seem like much but is pretty exciting for us right now. One of the branch missionaries put a video of our stand up on the stake Facebook page and it got like 1000 views so were making good things happen!

Oh also, when we got rear ended it was on our way to set up our stand, so we were late to this thing we've been planning for months. supr cool

in other news we went on exchanges on tuesday and I went to Savage Mill with elder Wilson and walked around in the pouring rain for a few hours, it was good fun.


here are some pictures you can hang on your Christmas tree

Here's our stand

exchange

chopped car

best fortune I've ever gotten

super cool pic of me in our new crib new address 5455 Columbia Rd #213
Columbia, MD 21044 i repeat

I'm a Christmas Unicorn

Dear Spike,

Hello space cadets, this week was absolutely thrilling! Nothing happened. We had 3 lessons scheduled with potential investigators and they all canceled. Every time we go to people's houses they don't answer the door. Every time we go street contacting nobody is interested in talking to us. Elder Meyer and I have been working real hard, we fasted twice this week, and still nothing's happening.

The Columbia Stake had a really cool event last night called the Messiah Sing. A bunch of performers, some members of the church and some not, performed Handel's Messiah and the audience sang along with some of the songs. Super cool!

Friday was one of the funniest days of my life. We raked leaves with the Spanish Elders, Elder Salmon and Elder Rollins, all day. We helped our friend Roberto rake and then went and raked for a lady in the Columbia 1st ward. While we were there i was with Elder Salmon raking in her front yard and she was flipping out cause he was wearing shorts and a t shirt so she grabbed him a jacket. Then we were like what if she offers him pants and we turn around and shes walking out with pants and i started to laugh then she comes over and starts putting the pants on him over his shorts i was so weak! I was laughing so hard i had tears running down my face it was so funny and i was turned the other way so that she couldnt see me laughing i felt bad but it was sooo funny. That probably didnt seem very funny but it was.

Sorry for my boring emails lately. This is life in an average American city.

a moose once bit my sister
actually i dont have a sister.

In other news I was reading Elder Uchtdorf's talk from the women's session of General Conference and he talks about how there are 2 things faith cannot do:
1: faith cannot violate another person's agency
2: faith cannot force our will upon God's
As I read that this week I realized that no matter how much faith I have that we will find people to teach, it also depends on God's will and the agency of others.



Here are some pictures for your wallpaper

me with a shovel that has dirt on it

laying in bags

Just another day in the life of a dog food salesman

Hello space cadets! This week nothing happened, again. It's been a slow few weeks but we're trying

Anthony passed the sacrament for the first time on sunday which was super great to see!

We got lucky and got offered a thanksgiving meal the day before thanksgiving so we had thanksgiving with a member of our branch, Zac Knudson and his family and then we went to the mission presidents house for dessert it was a good time.

So yeah sorry no exciting news this week that's cause nothing exciting happened. here's a couple boring pics that you can put on your fridge


Hope you all had a very merry cranberry thanksgiving, be thankful for your mommy and your daddy and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the skateboard under your feet.

me on a bridge at a lake full of people that didnt want to talk to us

super dumb pic of me and Elder Wilson skating this morning

Pupusas

This transfer went by quicker than something that is really quick! Just found out yesterday that me and Elder Meyer are staying together another transfer here in the CYSA so it's gonna be good!

This was a disappointing week because we had like 4 people that we were hoping to start teaching this week but they all either canceled or didn't answer the door at the time of the SCHEDULED appointment gosh dangit. Hopefully we will be able to get a hold of them this week

Last week we met a less active family through the Savage Mill Elders, the Garcias. It's a family of two, Sister Garcia, and her YSA age son Christian! They are soooo nice and awesome and have a statue of the temple on their table so we arent quite sure why they don't come to church? But anyways they are from El Salvador and they had us over for dinner and Sister Garcia labored for hours to make us the most delicious pupusas in all of the earth and we ate like a million of them i thought my stomach was gonna explode they were so good! Christian is super sick and funny and were gonna work on getting him to come to the branch!

We received a referral this week from our friend MK in the branch. It was a guy that lives in his neighborhood so we went over and he came out the door right when we were walking up and then was like are you mormons? And so we started talking to him and he wanted to argue (sort of) and it turned in to him telling us that it is a sin for us to believe that we can become like God and at this point I was basically like whoa hold up there buddy! Are you calling us sinners for what we believe? Cause we know this is true we live the teachings of Jesus Christ who was a perfect man and all this stuff so yeah this guy John was bein a punk. Then he prayed for us at the end. Nice guy, sort of.

Oh also, Anthony received the Aaron priesthood yesterday! Anthony is the best and the branch is really embracing him! Good stuff!



Happy thanksgiving everyone! Take this week to really think about what you are grateful for. Gratitude is the best attitude! Thats a rhyme. probably has been said a lot. Um yeah. Yeah! heres some cool pictures you can make in to stickers and put on your iPhone.

pupusa party with canada dry and tang ;)

new high end glasses from prada

BMW of the Week

Hey guys hello! Hi! HI! Hello! Hi! Hello! Hi!

We have no investigators and no one opens their door so as you can imagine that's tons of fun! It's okay though, we had a zone conference this week and though i was not all too thrilled to be there because of how long zone conferences are and i always get starving, President Christiansen did say something that I needed to hear. He basically said that our area is as good as our attitude. So if i have the attitude that we are going to find no new investigators...we wont. But if I have the faith to find and have a good attitude... we will! SO thats what im tryna dooooo.

This morning a bunch of missionaries got together and we played lazer tag with a potential investigator of ours that some other missionaries met. We had a great time and i actually won lazer tag which i have never done in my life it was crazy! My code name was M.C.Batcommander (shoutout to Aquabats fans and those who ordered a cadet package from Spike) And we met Brandon, the potential investigator, and he's super sick! We're gonna meet with him this week!

We went on exchanges this week and our district leader Elder Singleton came to the YSA with me it was a good time, we went street contacting at this little lake in the middle of Columbia, lake kittamaqundi and did some other stufff tried to see some people but people dont actually live in houses so thats cool.

Now for the BMW of the week! A member in our branch, MK took us out to visit people the other night and he's got a BMW and drives like a typical BMW driver (Shoutout to JPMonte and all my other BMWs out there). But we all know the superior driving machine is a VW.


This week I thought a lot about how I am able to do the things i do as a missionary because of Jesus Christ, and how important our savior is. We would be nothing if it wasn't for the atonement of Jesus Christ, it's that important! .


I hope that was the most thrilling email you've ever read, it probably wasn't but that's okay. Tune in next week it will be equally or more thrilling.

Exchanges with Elder Singleton mobbin at tha lake

Lake Kittamaqundi

me with MK and his BBBBMW and his BMW jacket hahahahhahaha

and now for a pic of my ridiculous companion

"Just quote Teddy Roosevelt for your subject" - Elder Meyer

I would like a purple toothpick right now, that would be very nice. There is no purple toothpick here though. This was a grrreat week, well mainly the past few days. Anthony was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on sunday! He was so happy at church on Sunday and his whole family came to the baptism and are so supportive it superdeeduperdee sweeeeeeet!


We got to go to Lancaster this week to help with car inspections at the lancaster zone conference, it was cool because I <3 lancaster


I had a great birthday because it wasnt about me! I was servin tha Lord so it was tiiight.


This week I became nearly convinced that people don't actually live in houses. We have tried to visit sooo many people and lights will be on inside car will be outside or whatever NOBODY ANSWERS THEIR DANG DOOR! It's alright im not bitter im just, uh frusdtrated yaimshayin. Its okayy though beeeecause...

Yesterday I was fasting that we would be able to find new investigators (especially because our 1 investigator just got baptized so now we have like 0) and a guy in the branch that just got back from his mission a couple weeks ago brought a friend to church and is gonna set up a time for us to meet with him! So we are super excited about that! We mainly just can work off of referrals in the YSA so the more the merrier! Getting super pumped ya ya ya ya


Much love every1

anthony's baptism! And Zac Knudsen whos preparing to go on a mission baptized him! So sick! Anthony is the one right next to me and zac is right next to Elder Meyer

YSA Branch bonfire the other night mobbing hard

 on someones porch on my bday out puttin in werrrk

Elder Meyer rollin & strollin deep in the cut of Columbia. Its so weird becasue its really foresty but at the same time it is super densly populated.

Happy Halloween Punks

Hey friends! Happy Halloween! This morning we went with a bunch of missionaries and played athletic sports at the harbor right in downtown Baltimore, pretty fun! Sorry no pics tho I forgot my camera hahaha.

Cool thing that happened this week. We were trying to visit a less-active member that the branch has asked us to see and we have been trying multiple times a week. The other day after knocking several times and waiting for about 5 minutes, Elder Meyer felt prompted to check around the back of the apartment building, so away we went! We walked around and there was a young guy with his dog. I knew instantly he was the one we were looking for. We walked up to him and said are you Quinn? And he said yeah, you must be the missionaries! He was super nice and excited to see us and is a super cool guy. We set up a time to see him this week and he asked us to arrange a ride for him to get to FHE! It was a true testimony builder to me of following the promptings of the spirit. I'm glad Elder Meyer acted on the prompting he received.

We had a game night with some branch members last night at UMBC, a college in our area at the edge of Baltimore. We played a game called curses and Elder Meyer got cursed and had to be shaking the whole game hahaha i was so weak.

This week is going to be terrible because i turn 20 years old tomorrow. Wish me luck everyone, my days as a teen are ovr. I guess i have to be an adult or something.

I was given a purple potato by a crazy lady in another ward this week, she told me and elder meyer she wanted to cook us in a stew, then she gave us a purple potato. Then we ate the potatoes.



happy halloween! Go skateboarding! Eat a purple potato! Eat lots of candy but dont eat too much candy because that is not good for your health or something like that.

fall is here, ring the bell!!!

me with a purple potato this lady gave us. Perceus the potato. I ate him

lil homie

purple potato

Orange Pineapples Mow Lawns in the Winter

I bet if you read the beginning of all my emails I start them off with like the same three greetings so im not doing that this time. Life's good here in Columbia I'm still getting used to YSA work because its so different! We've mainly been focusing on having members invite their friends to activities. The branch has really been starting to trust us more, Elder Meyer said he's already seen a change in their motivation to help us since I got here which is awesome! I guess the past few months this branch has had some less-motivated missionaries but now me and Elder Meyer are mobbing so hard through this place getting members hyped to introduce us to their friends! We've had several members tell us this week they've begun talking to some friends and are going to introduce us to them very soon!


One sick thing that happened this week was one day after trying to visit people and for like 2 hours not a single person was home, we decided to call up a former investigator, C. He told us he was raking some leaves so we offered our help and he was down so we cruised over there and raked his leaves with him! Pretty sweet and he invited us over to his house for a bbq in a couple weeks and also we set up a lesson for in a couple weeks after he gets back from a vacation so that was sweet!


On that note of leaves, fall is so beautiful out here the colors are great and the temperature is nice! However im not looking forward to it getting even colder...


Thanks for all your love and support everyone always remember to read your scriptures and don't eat plastic! It's probably not very good for you, a nice banana or mango will do though. Also drive a VW. Unfortunately the car scene in Maryland isnt as good as in PA but its ok.
1. me wit some real nice leaves

2. Nice E36 convertible with Porsche brakes and a mustang 5.0 engine swap (not my first choice but still cool) with a cut out hood to show it off, spotted at Howard Community College. Elder Meyer is modeling behind it

3. Some of the ties ive made recently

4. cruising through some leaves on an old plastic board i got at salvation army for 2 dollaaa

Columbia YSA

Hey hey hey! Columbia is sweet! First of all I lied last week the YSA here is not a ward its a branch of probably like 30 or 40 people that actually come but we are gonna turn it in to a ward if we work hard enough! So me and Elder Meyer cover the whole Columbia, MD stake which goes from all the way up to the Pennsylvania border down to the Savage Mill area below us and over to the edge of Baltimore. We spend most of our time around here in Columbia, Ellicott City, and Savage Mill though. Elder Meyer is such a character we are having a such a sick time out here lurkin for all the YSAs! We are working with the members of the branch and spend time on a few college campuses and are trying to get to set up booths there, so its good stuff!

We have an awesome investigator named A that is going to be baptized on November 5th! He is so sick and just embraces everything. We went to the DC temple visitors center with him on Saturday which was super sick. Hes such a great kid and is psyched to get baptized!

Another crazy awesome thing that happened was yesterday morning we get a call and i pick up the phone and can barely understand him because of some wicked accent but he was asking to come to church and so we got a ride for him and he came! His name is Alberto and he is from Haiti, and neither of us had ever met him before. He met missionaries like a year and a half ago and called us out of the blue to come to church! It was a tru miracle yaimshayin so were gonna start teaching him this weeeeek!

Also this week me and Elder Meyer carved a pumpkin with the book of mormon on it, so tiiiight.

Columbia is sick theres not enough vdubs tho but I love it here! We are still trying to figure out this whole thing of only teaching young single adults but we're loving it!



- Elder Poulsen

Also my new address is 4790 Dorsey Hall Dr. Apt. 6 Ellicott City, MD 21042 pls send letters and dried mangos ;)

Last Pics from Ephrata:

1. last district meeting in lancaster i am wearing a children's toy story tie dont worry i didnt wear it all day

2. my best homie little anderson and a tie i gave him i made, gonna miss him and his family

3. me and my last 2 comps ( elder mink and elder madsen) and elder ressler lolol elder ressler silly face and elder mink lookin like a fool raccoon bandit buddy

First pics of Columbia:1. first pic evr of me and Elder Meyer ignore my hair i was mobbin a hat in a sweaty car

2. us with A (to my left) and Zac (far left) the member that took us at da temple

3. s/o to the pmj foundation for hooking up me and Elder Meyer with 10,000 cuts (not really)

4. Book O' Mormon

Goodbye to Amishland :(

Hey everyone! So I'm being transferred this week, im sad but excited at the same time! I'm being transferred to Columbia, Maryland (which is near Baltimore) and I'm going to be in the YSA ward there! I already know my companion, his name is Elder Meyer and he is Stephanie Meyers son so prolly gonna make jokey twilight references to him all the time haha. So yeah I'm pretty stoked to go to Columbia YSA! However I am so sad to leave Lancaster County and the Ephrata ward. I love the beautiful scenery here and the wonderful Amish people. I have so many great memories here I'm really going to miss it :(.


This week we went on exchanges and i was over in the spanish branch again which is always fun because i have no idea whats going on in lessons! I try to communicate with the very little spanish I know but yeah its a good time though. This Dominican lady made us tea by boiling water with onion and cinnamon sticks and a bunch of sugar hahaha weird right but it was pretty good and me and elder scott both had colds and it helped us out so it was tiiight. we taught like 5 lessons that day like wow! That never happens with english speaking people around here hahaha only the hispanics are that down.


This week we've been putting in some extra effort to get the ward involved in missionary work by setting up family mission plans with people. Its been going great and its so exciting to see the members really starting to get psyched on getting this rolling!!! But now im being transferred...its ok though I'll apply the things i learned here in Columbia!


I'm so grateful for the time I've had to serve here in Lancaster County but I know the Lord needs me somewhere else now. I love this work and I love being a missionary!

Beautiful Lancaster County I'm going to miss

me lookin weird & chubby but i promise its just the sweater i think

Elder scott rollin his beautiful chrome dome on exchanges

I Made a Tie Out of a Chair

Whats good everyone I don't know what happened to this week it came and went so fast! Coolest thing that happened this week was we got a media referral named Smith and we went over to contact him and he invited us right in! Which was crazy because that never happens with referrals. He was a really nice guy from Haiti and we gave him the Bible he requested and taught him the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon, he kept saying, "I like this" and said "thats really nice I will do that!" about Moroni's promise so it was sweet! Hopefully we'll see him again this week.

I hope you all enjoyed conference weekend, I sure did! We were able to wacth the sunday morning session with the Snyders which was awesome. And Mckenzie has changed her mind about being baptized again so shes back to wanting to be baptized again haha so we are planning on November 5th for her baptism!

Also I made a tie out of a chair this week. Last week we were helping a member move furniture in her office and she was going to throw out these chairs, and they had sweet fabric, so i was like are you really gonna throw those out? And she said yeah and so i told her I was gonna make a tie out of it so i brought out some scissors, ripped open the chair and cut out the fabric, and then i made a tie out of it this week! Haha so sick im psyched on it.

Have a sweet week everyone drive a vw and eat peanut m&ms.

here is a really exciting pic of elder madsen in a neighborhood

tie i made out of a chair

car pic of the week nice 5 series wagon with some good wheels

skating Lancaster County skatepark this morning s/o to Elder Simmons for da photo